In the future, homeowners may grow their houses instead of building them.
That's the vision of MIT architect Mitchell Joachim of the Media Lab's Smart Cities group. He and his colleagues -- environmental engineer Lara Greden (S.M. 2001, Ph.D. 2005) and architect Javier Arbona-Homar (S.M. 2004) -- have conceived a home that doesn't just use "green" design but is itself a living ecosystem. They call it the Fab Tree Hab.